“Don’t tell Grandma. Not yet. Not until we know something.”
He was right. Rita was already holding Serenity’s arrest in one hand. And I needed her to focus on that. I didn’t want her distracted with Quest’s disappearance. I know she liked to display her strength but that kind of news right now could hurt her health.
“Agreed,” I said.
“I’m on my way to your office. Don’t move.”
The line went dead. Prime didn’t do goodbyes. He did arrivals.
I put the phone down on my desk and sat there in the quiet of my office. Q4 projections still glowing on my screen, the Banks Reserve logo on the wall, the weight of everything pressing down on me like a ceiling that was slowly lowering. My sister was in a jail cell in Connecticut. My brother was missing somewhere over the Caribbean. His pregnant fiancée was with him. And I was sitting in an office doing math while my family fell apart in two different directions at once.
A nigga like me couldn’t catch a break. Not a Saturday. Not a Tuesday. Not a single solitary day where somebody I loved wasn’t in danger or in custody or in the wind.
I pulled up Quest’s flight plan and started reading.
8
Serenity
Of all the people Justice could’ve sent, he senthim.
The guard walked me to the visitation room and when the door opened, Xander Wall was sitting at the metal table in a navy suit with a leather briefcase and a fresh lineup. I wanted to turn around and walk right back to my cell because there was absolutely no version of this reunion that I was prepared for. I was wearing a county-issued jumpsuit that made me look like an orange traffic cone with a belly. My edges were nonexistent. My skin was dry. And the man I’d had a crush on since I was nineteen years old was sitting three feet away from me looking like he’d just stepped off a magazine cover.
Life had a sick sense of humor.
I’d known Xander since forever. He was Justice’s boy from Hampton, always around during holidays, cookouts, and those late-night card games at Quest’s penthouse where the brothers would drink too much Banks Reserve and argue about sports. Xander was always there. Tall, quiet, smart in a way that made you pay attention when he talked because he didn’t waste words. His warm honey skin was clear and he sported a Caesar cut with deep onyx tinted waves. A full beard adorned his face and he hadthe most piercing eyes I’ve ever seen. Whenever he looked at me, my panties would flood.
He had this calm energy, steady and warm. He smiled with his whole face and I used to find excuses to be in whatever room he was in, even though he never looked at me as anything more than Justice’s little sister.
Because that’s all I was. Justice’s little sister. Off limits. Untouchable. Xander respected my brother too much to ever cross that line and I respected myself too much to throw myself at a man who wasn’t reaching. Besides, I always had an on-and-off-again thing with Julian before we finally got married. So I crushed from a distance and eventually life got loud enough to drown it out. Julian, drugs, rehab, Mega, the pregnancy, Vivica. There wasn’t room for a crush when your world was on fire.
But here he was. And here I was. And the fire was still burning, just in a different building.
“Serenity.” He stood up when I walked in. Xander had manners that most men didn’t bother with anymore. He looked at my belly first, then my face, and something flickered behind his eyes that he covered quickly with professionalism. “Sit down. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m eight months pregnant in a jail cell in Connecticut. So, amazing.” I lowered myself into the chair across from him and my back screamed at me because that cot was doing permanent damage to my spine. “I appreciate you coming, Xander. I know this is last minute.”
“Don’t do that. You know I’m here for you. Justice called and I was on a flight that night. There was no hesitation.” He opened his briefcase, pulled out a legal pad and a pen. The warmth in his face shifted into something sharper. Lawyer mode. “I’ve been looking into your case since I landed. Let me tell you what we’re working with.”
I nodded and folded my hands over my belly and braced myself because whatever was coming next was going to make this situation more real than it already was.
“They found a body buried in the woods about forty-five minutes outside of Hartford. It’s nothing but bones at this point, been in the ground for over a decade. Buried with it was a phone and a wallet belonging to a David Jamison.”
Hearing his name out loud, spoken by someone who wasn’t me, in a room with fluorescent lights and a guard outside the door, made my stomach drop. David Jamison. The man who was supposed to be my teacher. The man who groomed me, touched me, got me pregnant at fifteen, then looked me in the face and saidI got what I wanted from you. The man I put a kitchen knife into because my body decided it was done being a victim before my brain caught up to the decision.
I didn’t flinch. I kept my hands on my belly and I looked at Xander and I waited.
“The phone had text messages on it. After all this time the data was still recoverable, which is unusual but it happens. The texts indicate that you were the last person in contact with him before he disappeared.”
“Okay.”
“That’s what they have, Serenity. Texts and a body. It’s circumstantial. There’s no DNA linking you to the burial site, no murder weapon, no witnesses. This is a cold case that’s been sitting in a file for twelve years and it got reopened because somebody called in an anonymous tip.”
“An anonymous tip saying what?”
Xander paused. Set his pen down. Looked at me directly. “The tip alleged that you have a biological child fathered by David Jamison. The prosecution is going to want to test the child’s DNA to establish paternity. If they can prove Jamison fathered your child, it gives them motive. A sexual relationshipbetween a teacher and a student that resulted in a pregnancy and potentially in his murder.”
My whole body went cold. I could feel the baby shifting inside me, responding to the tension that was flooding through my blood.
